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On Friday, the remnants of Donald Trump’s failed re-election campaign informed staff they were putting an end to the “electoral fraud” hotline. It meant the death of a bare, depressing communal office space tucked away on one floor of Team Trump’s headquarters in Arlington, Virginia; a workspace that a senior Trump campaign official described to the Daily Beast as simply “the room from hell.”
In recent days, as political lieutenants and lawyers for the president searched for non-existent evidence of a massive electoral fraud plot that – they would then say – tipped the 2020 election towards President-elect Joe Biden, officials of the campaign have assigned an intermediate level. and junior staff to handle the newly set up internal phone and email for advice in the field. The “hell room” had televisions, on which staff members could pass the time by watching sports or cable news. The office space was lined with telephones and swivel office chairs, where a dozen or more employees could answer calls at the same time.
When the room first opened, staff members worked rotating shifts from 7 a.m. ET until 1 a.m. the next day, a source familiar with the matter said. No free food was provided on a regular basis. And the phones constantly ringing in the dreary, dull hell space, like a scene out of the movie Boiler room.
But unlike Boiler room, the day has been filled with far more death threats and infinitely more loud sounds on the phone lines.
According to three people familiar with the situation, the hotline was inundated for nearly a week by crank callers posing as public figures such as Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani, with anti-Trump callers launching into tirades. laden with vulgarity, pranksters making flatulence sounds, and the like. issue threats of physical violence to lower and middle-level Trump 2020 staff.
For every three or four hours of threats and pranks suffered, staff estimated they would get about one caller with serious, perhaps promising, advice. This was done in the context of a re-election campaign that almost all of them knew was over and defeated. The search for “FRAUD,” they knew, would not actually prevent Biden’s presidency from starting.
After peak hours of service, staff often left visibly upset, exhausted and undervalued. A staff member told The Daily Beast they had to go to the bathroom at least twice in the past few days to cry because of the volume of abusive phone calls.
“It’s misery. This is one of the worst ways to end a campaign that you could think of, ”said this person. Some of the staff had started to get aggressive with the jokes, giving false names and arguing or yelling on the landline again.
Although those Trump campaign hands heaved a heavy sigh of relief on Friday as news trickled that the phone line was going to cease operations, the emotional damage had already been done and the insult was already superimposed on the injury.
The Team Trump hotline fiasco was a perfect microcosm of the President’s continued unrest and the efforts of his senior officials to pretend Trump actually won the election. An effort to hamper and delay the presidential transition process following Biden’s decisive victory in both the popular vote and the Electoral College tally was undermined from the start by a complete lack of seriousness.
The hotline, and what came with it, also represented a fitting coda to President Trump’s unsuccessful bid for a second term, in which a candidate famous for refusing to return the loyalty he demanded of his subordinates left behind. many of the staff who have dedicated years of their lives to his cause to fend for themselves, as he works to build an alternate reality.
Some of the Trump team’s staff spoke to each other about the jobless claim next week, as many contracts were due to expire on November 15 and the campaign is experiencing downsizing. Senior officials offered little advice on what to come next, although the human resources department told them many of their campaign emails would be shut down soon. And in keeping with Trump’s illusion of an impending second term, the situation has prevented several senior officials from offering themselves even as listed references to junior staff scrambling to find another job for fear of getting into trouble for helping. to an informal transition. .
Earlier this week, CNN reported that an assistant to Trump’s campaign manager Bill Stepien yelled at a staff member for printing a resume at campaign headquarters.
“Instead of throwing personnel a lifeline, they tie anchors to their feet as they begin to navigate the murky waters associated with the massive turnover of posts across Washington, DC,” one of the sources said. .
However, on Friday night, Jason Miller, a senior Trump campaign adviser, told the Daily Beast, “We also asked for everyone’s resumes for potential future efforts. And Tim Murtaugh, the director of communications for Trump 2020, told the Daily Beast that the campaign, while downsizing because it had turned into a “legal and recount fight,” “was retaining the appropriate staff. to carry out the post-electoral process until the victory of the president. “
As for the hotline, Murtaugh confirmed there was “verbal abuse” which often included “very sexually graphic language … including physical threats and death threats.”
“The fact that our staff members were able to resist this in order to hear from voters who had real concerns about the security of the elections is a testament to their dedication to the president and his re-election,” he added.
On Friday morning, an email was sent by senior officials to the rest of the team thanking them for their “sacrifices” and calling everyone aboard Team Trump as “family.” The email, which was obtained by The Daily Beast, was signed by senior officials Bill Stepien, Justin Clark, Miller and Stephanie Alexander.
“[W]We want each of you to know how much we appreciated your hard work and dedication to President Trump, ”the note read. “Every member of this team has made sacrifices to participate in this re-election effort, and it will not be forgotten. We also know that today is the last day in the office for many of you, and we want to make sure you know we’re here to help you chart the next step in your career. We understood. We too have been there before and we know what it feels like.
In addition to the email, two senior executives said they have personally made themselves available to subordinates as work references and offered to help with future endeavors.
But one of the three sources described the email and outreach as “too little too late”.
In recent days, Trump officials had also asked campaign subordinates if they would be interested in being uprooted to key states such as Nevada and Pennsylvania to help them tackle legal challenges and public relations blitzes prominent Trump advisers and lawyers are leading to attack the legitimacy of the election. Several aides immediately declined the offer of such a transfer, assuming the work would be short-lived, unnecessary and yet another obstacle for staff members to continue with their lives.
Through it all, their candidate seemed to ignore or not take an interest in the plight of his infantry. So far, according to informed sources, there has been no conference call or note from President Trump thanking staff members for their service and for their commitment to the fight.
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